Background

Obesity has become an increasing public health issue, with a rising prevalence in both children and adults. Bariatric surgery is an effective treatment for obesity and obesity related conditions, and with widened access for surgical options, it is important to understand prospective patient and public interest in surgical management strategies. This study aimed to analyze and compare the temporal trends of public online searches of terms related to bariatric surgery.

Methods

A list of search terms were generated related to bariatric surgery, including “Weight loss surgery + Bariatric surgery”, “Sleeve Gastrectomy + Gastric Sleeve”, “Lap Band + Adjustable Gastric Band”, and “Roux-en-Y + Gastric Bypass”. Google Trends was utilized to obtain relative search volume (RSV) for the search terms and was analyzed for long term (2004 – 2021) trends in the United States.

Results

Trend analysis showed “weight loss surgery + bariatric surgery” and “sleeve gastrectomy + gastric sleeve” increased 1.6- and 48.7- fold respectively (both P<0.00001), whereas, “lap band + adjustable gastric band” and “Roux-en-Y + gastric bypass” decreased 2.1- and 1.8- fold respectively (both P<0.001).

Conclusions

Search query interest for bariatric surgery has increased since 2004, with sleeve gastrectomy having the largest gain in volume. As obesity becomes more prevalent, there has been a greater public interest in self-education in surgical weight loss. This data may serve to provide perspective on current and future public and patient interest and open discussion on demand and increased potential for usage of surgical management strategies for obesity.